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In order to ensure a “safe Olympics,” the Chinese government is drawing on troops from the infantry, navy, and air force. The troops involve four military districts and divisions that are directly under the navy, air force, and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) headquarters, including professional forces such as the air corps, engineer corps, antichemical warfare corps, and medical service squad. The government has also employed fighter planes, helicopters, warships, surface-to-air missiles, radar, antichemical equipment, and engineering protection equipment. They have also constructed a monitoring system using modern technology to monitor every spot in the city. According to the CCP, all of this has been done for the security of the Olympics and anti-terrorism. The reality, however, is that there are all kinds of conflicts in society, frequent incidents and many “factors that cause social instability.” This new system and arrangement afford a highliy efficient means to control people. Below is an excerpt of an article from Outlook Weekly under the Xinhua News Agency. [1]

The Technology of the Security System for the Olympics

The technology of the security system involves areas of communication and command, intelligence and information, weapons security inspection, and many others fields. It is like a virtue and digital system and it touches every corner of the city.

Beijing has initiated full-scale construction of a capital-security communication framework, six major technology systems for Olympics security, an Olympics intelligence traffic system, and a dynamic fire control digital system for the Olympics field. These provide strong technological support for the security of the Olympics.

The police department in Beijing has implemented the full-scale construction of a capital-security communication framework:

— It has finished building the different levels of a police fast-response command system with the application of information technology. It uses network video supervising, GPS controlled police cars, police on-site information control, 110, 119, and 122 emergency contacts, a real-time information collection and management system, and an operating control system.

— It has combined operational information, real-time information, and related social information resources, and formed a strong information support system. The real-time analysis, fast relating with other cases, and the dynamic information inquiry will give support to security and solving cases with wide-angle and multiple-level services.
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— It has constructed an integrated communication system combining both wired and wireless networks, and completed the preliminary construction of an information highway, supported by wide-band digital networks and group digital communication systems.

— It has perfected the public service system. The police station is currently supporting 31 on-line services and has 53 downloads of relevant forms.

According to the requirement of “security combat” for the Olympics, the Beijing City Police Department has completed the security information system, an advanced security system involving both communication and command. It includes six subsystems: a computer information command system, an information network communications system, an image information system, a personnel and area control system, an actual combat technology system, and a single soldier digital system.

Beijing has also done a study of intelligence traffic control. During the Olympics, based on a model of automobile and pedestrian traffic, it will have a complete and scientific traffic guidance system and an Olympics special-purpose guidance system. The traffic dispatcher system will also be perfected. These systems will be in complete accord with international standards. Also, the Olympics gymnasiums, special-purpose Olympics buses, and places with major activities will be monitored by TV 24-7. All these will give a fully intelligent transportation service for the Olympics.

In the work of the fire control system, major technical issues such as secure evacuation of the 90,000 people in the national gymnasium and steel-structures for fire prevention have all be delineated. In the city-wide fire control system, a great deal of high-technology equipment has been installed, such as remote-control robots for situations of subway fire, tunnel-fire, and large areas of poison gas or fog.

Internationally Advanced Weapons Equipment

The equipment for anti-terrorism, security inspection and explosion detection has achieved an internationally advanced level. Recently, Beijing’s modernized weapons equipment for the Olympics security personnel has drawn widespread attention from around the world.

— The police assault vehicles have strong attack and defense capabilities, and can be driven off-road. Special-purpose police can use them for dealing with hijacking, gunfights and other relevant violence.

— Violence-defensive vehicles have an anti-bullet functionality, nine electrical tear bombs in a running fire setting, and firing slots and striking horns on both sides of the vehicles. The climbing vehicles have extra assault ladders, and can break windows on the low levels of buildings. They can perform outside blocking and assault in case of an incident of crowd violence and of high-level confrontation attacks.
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— The command vehicles have advanced network communication systems, image transferring equipment, and the ability of communication while moving. They can gather all useful information and make the decisions with no loss of time. They are moving multi-functional commanding centers.

— The anti-explosion and security inspection motorcade is composed of anti-explosion trailers, interfering vehicles, anti-explosion equipment vehicles, and ZBV security inspection vehicles. They have the functionality of detecting explosion threats, anti-explosion, transporting, and screening, etc. They can perform security inspections of the contest fields, equipment, and people. The technology is the most advanced internationally.

— Multifunctional special-purpose motorcade. It is composed of armored cars, obstacle-laying vehicles, troop-transporting vehicles, and water bomb vehicles. The obstacle-laying vehicles can quickly lay down large numbers of obstacles to control the situation. The armored cars and troop-transporting vehicles can defend against an attack of hard particles such as large bricks, and are for transferring large numbers of armed forces to the center of an incident. The water bomb vehicles can shoot out high-pressure water, in order to dissipate crowds.

— The police aerocade under the special-purpose troops of the Beijing City Police Department was formed in April of 2007. It has four police helicopters, which are equipped with electric winches that can hang in the air and perform emergency rescues. They are also equipped with special high technology equipment to perform night searches, tracking and illumination, and image transferring. They will be performing air duties during the Olympics such as air command, patrol, and emergency rescue.

— The special-purpose troop was formed in 2005. It has 1000 special-purpose members who are equipped with long-barreled guns, handguns, and wolf-eye flashlights. Each squad is equipped with obstacle-clearing vehicles, dismantle vehicles, quiet submachine-guns, remote-intercepting machines, and electric intercepting vehicles, etc. All members have been trained for anti-terrorism attacks, and have experience in dealing with violent attacks such as hijacking, kidnapping, and explosion.

On June 21, the “Blue Sword” assault squad of the special-purpose troop was formally ordered to perform anti-terrorism tasks during the Olympics. The “Blue Sword” has had their original 81-1 automatic rifles replaced with 95- assault rifles, used by the field operation troops, and their 97-submachine guns have been replaced with the 06-submachine guns, which are the most advance submachine guns in the nation. The helmets that these special-purpose police wear are bulletproof Kevlar, and are used for the first time by the Beijing Police Department.

Also, a high-energy microwave emission machine can send microwave beams to destroy electrical devices within a certain distance. It is used for anti-explosion controls and by the motorcades. The acoustic sniper detector can locate snipers within several seconds. All this high technology equipment has reached the most advanced level internationally.

Endnotes:
[1] Outlook Weekly, July 7th, 2008
http://news.sohu.com/20080707/n258003951.shtml

Some people think that the emergence of the Internet is the biggest threat to the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), and the CCP has therefore been trying to control the Internet. In mainland China, the CCP still places a lot of emphasis on controlling the Internet. Outside of China, the CCP likewise influences a majority of Chinese language websites. The following is a report by Xinhua.net (the CCP’s official media site) about Hu Jintao’s speech regarding “Construction of the internet culture.” [1]

In the CCP Political Bureau’s 38th group study, Hu Jintao stressed:
“Create and manage the Internet culture with the innovation needed to meet people’s growing spiritual and cultural needs.”

Based on news on January 24, from xinhua.net, the CCP Central Committee Political Bureau completed its 38th group study on January 23 in the afternoon. The CCP Central Committee General Secretary Hu Jintao hosted the study. He emphasized: strengthen the establishment and management of the Internet culture, and fully demonstrate the importance of the Internet in socialist culture. This can help to improve the whole nation’s ideology and social ethical quality, can help to expand propaganda and ideological work, help to improve the charm and influence of the socialist construction of the ideological infrastructure, and help to enhance China’s soft power. We must adopt a positive attitude and innovative spirit to develop and spread a healthy Internet culture, truly construct the Internet well, utilize it well, and manage it well.

The content for this group study of the CCP Central Committee Political Bureau deals with the development of the global network and Internet culture, and its construction and management in China. The Central Foreign Affairs Office Internet Bureau director Li Wufeng, the Telecom Research Institute of the Ministry of Information Industry Prof. Cao Shumin, and senior engineers discussed this issue, and shared their opinions and suggestions on the Internet culture construction and management in China.

Several staff members of the CCP Central Committee Political Bureau carefully listened to their presentation, and discussed the related issues.

Hu Jintao hosted the study and gave a speech. He pointed out: the rapid development of Internet culture in China has play a positive role in spreading information and knowledge, and in promoting the party’s theoretical guidelines and policies. At the same time it has brought up the issue of our construction of socialist ideology. Whether we can actively use and effectively manage the Internet, whether we can truly use the Internet as a new tool to spread the advanced socialist culture as a new platform for public culture service, and as a new dimension for people’ healthy spiritual culture, are issues related to socialist cultural undertakings and cultural industries, related to the nation’s culture of information and the nation’s long-term stability, related to the overall situation of a socialist system with Chinese characteristics.
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Hu stressed: to strengthen the construction and management of China’s Internet culture, we must start from the overall layout of socialist development with Chinese characteristics, and the strategy of cultural development; persist in the guidance of the “Deng Xiaoping Theory” and “Thought of the Three Represents;” comprehensively implement Scientific Outlook on Development in accordance with the requirements of developing an advanced socialist culture; adhere to positive use, large scale development, and scientific management; use advanced technology to spread the advanced culture, to promote harmonious cultural construction, to better meet people’s growing spiritual and cultural needs, and to provide a powerful ideological guarantee and public media support in building a well-off society in an all-around way.

Hu Jintao introduced five requirements on strengthening Internet culture construction and management. First, we must adhere to the direction of developing an advanced socialist culture, loudly sing the main theme of ideological culture on the Internet, advocate scientific truth, spread advanced culture, promote the scientific spirit, shape good minds, and promote a healthy social environment. Second, we must improve the capability to service and supply Internet culture products, improve the scale and professionalism of the Internet culture industry, take the profound Chinese culture as the important source of the Internet culture, push our advanced culture to be digitized and Internet-ized, improve the spread of the higher grade culture of information, strive to form a group of high quality Internet products which are brand rich in the Chinese style, embodied with the modern spirit, and push the internet culture to take effect in nurturing the soul, cultivating character, and pleasing both body and mind. Third, we need to strengthen the ideological and public opinion construction on the Internet, dominate public opinion on the Internet, improve the level of guidance on the Internet, pay attention to the art of guidance, actively use the new technology, increase the intensity of positive publicity, and form positive pubic opinion. Fourth, promote construction of the Internet with civilization, purify the Internet environment, strive to create a civilized, healthy, and positive Internet culture environment, and create a sharing spiritual home. Five, we must adhere to management in accordance with law, to scientific management, and to effective management, combine the use of law, administration, economy, technology, ideological education, industry, self-regulation and other means, to speed up the dissemination of Internet information under management that is according to law, industry self-regulation, society supervision, and an orderly manner, and truly safeguard the security of the nation’s cultural information.

Hu Jintao pointed out: the CCP committees and governments at all levels should take action to strengthen the planning, improve the system, standardize management, and add staff, etc., to strengthen the development of the information industry and of Internet culture, and to truly apply the requirement of both development and management to Internet technology, industry, content, security and other aspects. It is necessary to formulate policies and create conditions to strengthen and improve the information and service closely related to people’s work and living. We must accelerate the building of Internet teams, form teams suitable for the Internet culture construction and management, such as a management team, a media guidance team, and a research and development team. We need to train a group of people with high political quality and strong technology. Government leaders at all level must pay attention to studying Internet knowledge, improving leadership and control, and striving to create a new situation for the nation’s Internet culture construction.

[1] Xinhua.net，Jan. 24, 2007
http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2007-01/24/content_5648188.htm

On July 3, 2008, the International Herald Leader under Xinhua News Agency published a report titled “The U.S. Attempts to Set Up Its Stronghold in Tibet to Facilitate Its Entry Into Tibet.” This report reveals the Chinese government’s response to the U.S. government’s proposal to set up a consulate in Tibet. The following is the translation of the report.

By Lin Jie, International Herald Leader Staff Reporter from Beijing

It is very obvious that the United States has its political agenda in having a consulate in Lhasa; which is, setting up a stronghold in Tibet for the United States.

Not for the first time, the American politicians who are overly “concerned” about Tibet once again proposed to set up a consulate in Lhasa.

On June 26, the U.S. Senate passed an urgent fund appropriation act. Included in the additional articles of this act was a proposal to appropriate five million dollars to establish a consulate in Lhasa. The House of Representatives passed this act on June 19 before it was sent to the Senate.

The U.S. Has an Obvious Political Agenda

When interviewed by the International Herald Leader, Professor Niu Xinchun of the Institute of American Studies, China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, explained the seriousness of the act passed in the Senate: “Although similar proposals have been brought up in recent years many times, this time it is passed in the form of Congress Law, making it more formal. That means the U.S. Congress will implement this act accordingly.”

What on earth is the true motive of those American politicians who are making such a great show to demonstrate their earnestness?

Professor Ye Hailin at the Institute of Asia Pacific Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, has been an expert in consulate affairs. He told reporters of the International Herald Leader that there are two necessary requirements in choosing the site for a consulate. One is the consulate must be located in a region where the bilateral economic exchange and cultural exchange are both very active; the second is the overseas residents from the particular foreign country are populous in that region. However, in Tibet, neither of these two requirements is met. In addition, in terms of the U.S. consulate distribution in China, the United States already has a consulate in Sichuan Province, the neighboring province of Tibet. If the United States needs to accomplish certain consulate tasks, its consulate in Chengdu should be sufficient to handle them.
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“If we use the elimination method,” said Professor Ye Hailin, “the only motive for the U.S. to set up a consulate in Lhasa is a political motive. It has nothing to do with the normal functions of a regular general consulate.”

The U.S. ‘Priority Project’ to Meddle With Tibetan Affairs

Then, what is the political agenda of the United States? According to Professor Niu Xinchun, the United States intended to “establish a stronghold in Tibet.”

As early as April this year, the U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stated clearly that trying to set up a U.S. consulate in Tibet is meant to help explore a channel for American diplomats to get into Tibet. Back then, Rice made this statement when addressing the fund appropriation committee of the Senate. She also mentioned that the U.S. government was studying the possibility of establishing a consulate in Tibet. The NGO organization in the United States, “International Campaign for Tibet,” which had been instigating the Congress and supporting the establishment of a U.S. consulate, claimed that having a U.S. consulate in Lhasa would “improve the quality and quantity of the information obtained from inner Tibet for U.S. government officials.”

As a matter of fact, at the very beginning of the motion, it had a close tie to the activists in the United States advocating an independent Tibet and those forces supporting an independent Tibet. On April 24 of this year, the Dalai Lama’s Special Envoy Lodi Gyari made his way to the hearing of the Senate, claiming that establishing a U.S. consulate in Lhasa should be listed as the “Most Priority Project” by the U.S. congress in meddling with Tibetan affairs. Also present was the American actor Richard Gere, who willingly works hard for “Tibet Independence activists.” He is one of the organizers of the “International Campaign for Tibet.”

It Requires Bilateral Agreement to Establish a Consulate

At present, there is only one consulate in Tibet—the consulate of Nepal. This consulate was established before the Dalai Lama escaped to India in 1959. Lhasa has played a significant role in the active economic and cultural exchange between China and Nepal. The direct transportation line between Nepal’s capital Kathmandu and Lhasa is serving passengers traveling between the two cities.

India was the second country with a consulate in Lhasa at that time. However, after the rebellion in Tibet in 1959, the Indian Consulate in Lhasa played an extremely shameful role. When the Sino-India war broke out in 1962, the Indian Consulate in Lhasa was abolished. A few years ago, Indian government had thought of resuming the consulate in Lhasa; after a bilateral negotiation, the consulate was finally chosen to be set up in Guangzhou City. According to analysts, such an arrangement conformed to the principle of equality in setting up a consulate, because India is not allowed to enter the sensitive northwestern region of China either.
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Therefore, a senior international law scholar also pointed out, if China rejects the American proposal of setting up a consulate in Lhasa, it does not constitute a violation to any international law. In addition, China does not have to provide any explanation. There isn’t any problem in the legal aspect either.

Endnotes:
[1] Reference: International Herald Leader, July 3, 2008
http://news.xinhuanet.com/herald/2008-07/03/content_8480905.htm

The following article has been posted on many Chinese websites under different titles. The extensive posting on China’s heavily censored websites and blogs indicates a widespread public acceptance of the article; it also indicates that the ruling regime feels a real sense of political crisis. In this scholarly article, both nationalism and the anti-western sentiment found in traditional propaganda have been blended together. China is portrayed as a grief-stricken victim, not of its own regime, or of the breakdown of morality in China, but of lustful western exploitation that has expended all its natural and human resources to contribute to the welfare of the West and of the rest of the world. The West is cited as a scapegoat for all the current problems that China faces: the prevalence of tainted food, slave-labor wages, the prevalence of crime and prostitution, the outrageous environmental degradations, wanton corruption, the lack of occupational safety, the heavy losses in the financial sector, and even why China’s wealthy transfer their assets abroad. Below is an unabridged translation of the Chinese original. Chinascope has not been able to verify the authorship. [1]

Author: Professor Zhang Hongliang of Central University of Nationalities

The third step is the bargain purchase, that is, using a very low price or even a zero price to buy out the core industries or the leading companies in various sectors. Foreign investment in China has already caused the proportion of the local manufacturing industry to drop to 26.5% in added value. Also the purchase price is so low that it is far below the asset purchase price after the Great Depression. The purchase price is less than 5% of the value of the assets if purchased on the open market. For example, strong domestic banking networks support the fund management companies linked to banks. They sold 1/3 of their stock at the price of 1 yuan per share to the foreign investment companies. The foreign investment companies invested only tens of millions of yuan. After one year, without including the increase in capital, just the annual profit was over hundreds of millions of yuan.

As for handling the financial nonperforming assets, the gain that foreign companies have made is even more alarming. Take Morgan Stanley, which was mentioned previously. During the cooperation process with China Huarong Asset Management Co., one of four largest asset management companies in the nation, it made a 900% profit, and formed the world-famous “Huarong Model.” In fact, among the current 4,000 billon non-performing financial assets, a considerable number were created due to the foreign investment companies taking advantaging of the tax-emption policies to defeat the state-owned enterprises. This is what happens: the first to step is to beat the other’s husband to death, then to take over the other’s body. The sad thing is, in the end not only do our 4,000 billon non-performing financial assets fall into the foreign investment companies’ hands, but we also pay the bill for those 4,000 billon non-forming financial assets. The reason is very simple. Many non-performing assets are non-performing in our hands, but when they fall into the foreigners’ hands, they are no longer non-performing assets. The foreigners know very well that the Chinese government officials are afraid of foreigners in China. They will go through a lawsuit to force the local government to give them these non-performing financial assets.
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Thirdly, currently the foreign investments in China not only loot the country’s economic resources, but they have also started to disintegrate and destroy China’s political system resources. The raiding investors have created great GDP achievements for local governments. This, together with officials’ enormous personal interests, has caused the local governments to crazily seek foreign investors. The preferential terms they offer to the foreign investments have exceeded the economic sphere. They even give political and legal privileges that were used by the past imperialist concessions in China, at the expense of our national sovereignty, to attract these foreign investments. Due to the increasingly complex components of capital, now the local political and legal privileges have also been extended to all capital.

According to a news report from Legal Evening News last week, Qinyang City in Henan Province provided 12 various political and legal privileges to all those who invested over 50 million. These include the following: they do not need to conform to the traffic regulations, they enjoy half price for hospital care, their sons and daughters can freely choose a school, and they are not subject to police inspections in the entertainment area (gambling, prostitution), etc. It has also been said that every month from the 1st day to 25th it is “Quiet Day” for foreign businesses. No government unit including the judiciary is allowed to access the business. Whoever violates this will be immediately expelled from his job. Right until the time the reporter finished this write-up, 7 civil servants had been expelled from work because they entered a foreign business. A regulation similar to this one in Qinyang City of Henan Province has already been seen in the southeast coastal areas. A secretary in Guangdong Province directly said in front of CCTV’s video camera, when he was explaining why he asked the court to sentence migrant workers so they would lose the case, “Very simple. I have plenty of migrant workers here. But it is very hard to attract the foreign investments. If I do not speak for the foreign investors, who will speak for them? Development is the hard truth.” It was Comrade Xiaoping who said this. Many foreign investment companies in China have also changed from simply bribing the government officials, to gradually controlling them and giving them lessons. It was said of Beijing Vice Mayor Liu xx, that because he violated one foreign investment company’s interest, his corruption and a tape showing his promiscuity were immediately made public.

5. As for IPOs in the overseas markets, unlike the foreign capital’s predatory acts in China, our companies entering the developed western countries have brought surprisingly huge returns to the local investors. China Petroleum Corporation initially had only 2.9 billion US dollars when it went IPO in the United States. Four years later, the overseas dividends accumulated had reached 11.9 billion US dollars. For China Petroleum, China Petrochemical, China Mobile, and China Unicom, just the four companies, their overseas dividends have reached 100 billion US dollar. What is worth mentioning is that the above companies’ profits have completely come from looting domestic consumers, or from lucrative rate charges on calls for incoming and outgoing calls. This is the equivalent of collecting money from Chinese and giving it to foreigners. It is already terrible how the foreign companies loot China’s wealth; it is not justified that the state-owned companies in China also help the foreigners to collect China’s wealth.
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There are more than 100 companies similar to the above 4 companies. If the corporate dividends are paid in this way, not only developing countries like China cannot afford it, but developed counties such as the United States will be ripped down to a developing country.

Currently our national social security expenditure is a little over 300 billion yuan. The minimum amount for cost-of-living funds in 2004, and for the central government and local government’s finances, together were just over 20 billion yuan. This amount is equal to only 10% of the dividends that the above 4 companies gives overseas. The state-owned enterprises belong to the nation; they should serve the whole nation, and should not just consider the foreign investors’ interests. According to the 3rd health service survey by the Ministry of Health, currently over 50% of the urban population, and 87% of the rural population, do not have any medical insurance. About 80% of the population in the west-central area cannot afford medical care, over 50% of the rural, primary, and secondary schools hardly have enough operating expenses, over 40% of primary schools use dilapidated buildings, over 40% of primary schools lack desks and chairs, close to 40% of rural primary schools cannot pay electricity; some dare not turn on the lamps. In the western area some rural schoolteachers’ monthly salaries are only about 40 yuan. Some female teachers have to do prostitution after class in order to make a living. According to a joint investigation by Renmin University of China and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, in 2004, China’s Gini coefficient was about 0.53. According to the National Bureau of Statistics’ survey of urban and rural households, the average gap between rich and poor in urban and rural areas has increased from 2.7 times in 1978 to 7.4 times in 2003. In 25 years the gap has gone up 4.7 times. After many years of sustained economic growth, it is shocking how rapidly the gap between rich and poor has been increasing. The root cause is no longer purely domestic factors, but rather the result of how international monopoly capital has colonized China.

6. Lastly looking from the economic developing zones, the hot trend of building economic zones across the nation for many years has already become a destructive force; it has become another way for foreign capital to loot China. According to the information provided by the Ministry of Land and Resources, from 1996 to 2003, the cultivated land in China decreased from 1.95 billion mu (note: mu is Chinese acre, 1 US acre = 6.07 mu) to 1.85 billion mu. It decreased by 100 million mu over 7 years; an average of 14.29 million mu each year has disappeared. This is larger than twice all of the cultivated land in Hainan Province. It is the equivalent of 2 of Hainan Province’s cultivated land disappearing per year. In China the cultivated land per person is only 1.43 mu, which is less than 40% of the world average. In 2003, there were 6 provinces whose average cultivated land per person was less than the 0.8 mu warning level. In 2004 the central government cleaned up close to 7,000 developing zones in the nation. The new projects in the developing zones occupy about 74 million mu of land. Among them 40% is not used for development. This has caused a large amount of land to remain idle. What’s even more sad is that a large amount of good fertile farmland has been completely destroyed.
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A Ministry of Land and Resources official said that the land occupied by the various developing zones has exceeded the total area of all of China’s cities and towns. More and more cities have embarked on the development of the “Suzhou City Mode,” i.e. using cheap land to attract foreign investment. According to a statistics report, in Suzhou City, every year when the GDP increases by 1%, it costs about 5,000 mu of cultivated land. With the speed of development being around 18%, cultivated land is disappearing at the speed of almost 100,000 mu per year. With cheap land used to attract foreign investment, we cannot count how much wealth has simply been given to foreign investment. However, it is reflected in the loss of farmers who have been deprived of their land. It is an amazing astronomical figure. According to some expert’s statistics, the farmers who are deprived of their land receive 5% to 10% of the value as compensation. In 10 years they have lost 10 trillion to 20 trillion yuan. Taking this land from the farmers who, for generations, have depended on the land to make a living, and giving the land to foreigners, this is a traitorous act. The foreign capital attracted by this cheap land, in turn, helps the real estate businesses by increasing the value of land. The increased value of land in China has become foreign investment’s profit. Pany Ming, director of the Department of Cultivated Land Protection, the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources, pointed out that from the situation in 2005, the land occupied by the new developing projects in the nation has resulted in a net income loss of 76.3 billion yuan, while the actual land use fees that the central and local governments have collected from the new developing projects, amounted to only 21.45 billion yuan. Of this money 55.0 billion flowed to the foreign investment real estate companies. That is, just in 2005, the land use fees in the new developing projects led to a loss of nearly 55.0 billion.

Let’s think about it. Our people’s wages have become the profit for foreign investments. Our future descendants’ resources have become the profit for the foreign investments. Our deteriorating environment has become the profit for the foreign investments. Our national land has become the profit for the foreign investments. In the end, what else do we have left for our nation?

Note: mu is Chinese acre, 1 US acre = 6.07 mu

Endnotes:
[1] Boxun, June 9, 2008
http://news.boxun.com/news/gb/china/2008/06/200806092153.shtml

Editor’s Note: This is an article published on Xinhuanet.com Website at the end of 2004. For the Chinese communist regime, giving up control over the army is equivalent to giving up its reign over the Chinese people. In the recent years, there have been different voices demanding for the nationalization of the Army from civilians, even from within the Army, but the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would make no concession in this aspect. The following is the translation for the Xinhuanet.com news article. [1]

[Xinhuanet.com News Center, Beijing, December 25th, 2004]  The Resolution released at the 4th Plenary Session of the 16th CCP Central Committee mandates: “Adhere to the Party’s absolute leadership of the Army; always put the ideological and political education in the forefront as top priority in order to maintain forever the nature, the unique characteristics and the style of the People’s Army.” The Resolution provided guidance for us to improve the Party’s capability in managing the Army. The Party’s absolute leadership over the Army is the never ever-changing spirit of our army as well as a unique political advantage. It is also the demarcation line between our army and any other armies in capitalist countries.

People’s Liberation Army of China is the People’s Army established by and under the absolute leadership of the Chinese Communist Party; it is an armed force serving to carry out the political tasks of the Party. The principle of adhering to the Party’s absolute leadership, which was the foundation upon which the Army was created, had been formed and gradually been fully developed by the Party on the basis of its scientific understanding of the objective principles of China’s revolutionary struggles.

To adhere to the Party’s absolute leadership over the Army is, most fundamentally, to firmly uphold the banner [of the Party leadership], to support the core [of the Party], to keep consistent with the CCP Central Committee in ideology and political views, to strictly follow the instructions from the CCP Central Committee, and to firmly uphold the authority of the CCP Central Committee led by Comrade Hu Jintao as Secretary-General. This is the highest political discipline of our army, as well as the fundamental requirement to ensure the Party’s absolute leadership over the Army.

To adhere to the Party’s absolute leadership over the Army, we must firmly take Mao Zedong’s military ideology and Deng’s ideology of military development in the new era as our guidance, and fully implement the important ideology of the “three represents.” We must persevere in taking the ideology of the “three represents” as the important guiding ideology in leading and developing the military, making sure it is carried out in all aspects of the development of the Party Committees within the Army, and implementing it in all activities of the Army’s preparation for military battles. We must do so to truly resolve the two historical tasks: always winning the battles and never changing the nature of the Army. It is the basic ideological guarantee to ensure the Party’s absolute leadership of the Army.{mospagebreak}

To adhere to the Party’s absolute leadership over the Army, we must firmly resist the wrong ideological trends such as “Separating the Army from the Party,” “Depoliticize the Army” and “Nationalization of the Army.” We must further strengthen the Party’s absolute leadership and discipline ourselves in this respect.
 
To adhere to the Party’s absolute leadership over the Army, we must firmly uphold and improve the fundamental principle of the Party’s leadership over the Army, which mainly includes: (1) the ultimate leadership and chain of command is under the CCP Central Committee and the Central Military Committee. The CCP Central Committee is the top leadership and decision-making regime, and the Central Military Committee is the Party’s top leadership body inside the Army. (2) The Party establishes CCP committees at or above the regiment levels, and establishes the Party grass-root committees at the battalion level. The CCP committees at different levels are the core of leadership at each level. (3) According to the principle of democratic centralism, under the collective leadership of each CCP committee with committee members responsible for different portfolios and duties. (4) General Political Department is set up for the Army. At or above regiment levels, there are political commissar’s offices. (5) At the company level or equivalent, there are CCP branch committees which are the grass root regimes of the Party in the Army – the core of leadership at its level.

To adhere to the Party’s absolute leadership over the Army, we must stick to the practice of ideological and political education as top priority before any other agendas in the Army. It is the requirement to ensure that the Party will tightly control the Army in ideology and politics.

To adhere to the Party’s absolute leadership over the Army, we must continuously strengthen the development of CCP committees and cadres in the Army.

Endnote:
[1] Xinhua, December 25, 2004
http://news.xinhuanet.com/newscenter/2004-12/25/content_2379107.htm

Gangs have penetrated into middle schools in China, according to lecturers from a seminar on crime prevention held in Guangzhou, China. Experts are calling for the justice system to get involved with these hate groups. The following is a translation of a report on the seminar published by Radio Free Asia. [1]

Some group members are actively recruiting students in middle schools to their organizations. Not only do they threaten students, but also force them to hand over their money. Their actions have created a bad image in the community. According to Hong Kong Takungpao [a Chinese-language newspaper], Liao Zongyi, Guangzhou City deputy prosecutor, said at the seminar that over the last several years the local juvenile crime rate continues to increase and these school gangs still exist despite being banned multiple times. Some gangs have more than one hundred members; thus, they are severely endangering society. These gangs have set up activities at many middle schools in Guangzhou City. There are more than 10 well-known gangs. They intimidate and lure other students to join their groups. According to the report, the main activities of gang members are recruiting people into their organizations, threatening people, and extorting money. They then turn the money into the leaders of these hate groups outside schools. Student members pay monthly membership fees from $4 to $10 (30 RMB to 80 RMB), thereby providing gang leaders approximately $120 (1,000 RMB) in cash just on membership fees alone.

Ms. Guo, professor of psychology at Zhongshan University, often volunteers to provide psychological counseling for juveniles. She said middle school-age students have a tendency to be group oriented and therefore want to be in groups, which makes them easy targets for gangs in society to manipulate.
 
"The characteristic of puberty (age 13 to 16) is that teenagers want to find a feeling of belonging from their peers to prove their lives have meaning and value. Even for an outstanding student, if his/her friends won’t accept him/her, he/she could feel that heaven was collapsing. This age group is deeply influenced by hormonal changes. In addition, regardless of country, during these teenage years (age 13 to 16) they are more likely to commit murders compared to other age categories.”

Dr. Liu Xiaozhu, a sociologist from the United States, said that the main reasons for juveniles to form unhealthy gangs were due to the rapid changes in social structures, poor economic conditions, and slow responses from the community.

"First of all, gangs from overseas come into China, especially from Hong Kong and Taiwan, making Guangdong province a rough place. If the social order is bad, the juvenile hate groups become attractive. Other factors are the stress coming from education and employment pressures. These environments allow for hate groups to easily develop.”
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According to official Chinese data, since 2000, the juvenile crime rate has annually increased 13 percent. Juvenile crimes make up 70 percent of national crimes; among these, 70 percent of juvenile crimes were committed by juveniles between the ages of 15 and 16. In other words, juveniles between the ages of 15 and 16 committed 50 percent of the overall national crimes. Normally, students with poor grades are more likely to join the gangs. However, a middle school “black dragon gang” from Guangzhou City shows that most of the outstanding students are also part of the gang. 

Liu Xiaozhu states that juveniles are full of energy. If they lack appropriate group activities, they create social problems easily. He concludes that the current juvenile education focuses too much on fame and that a lack of moral value is another reason for the increasing juvenile crimes.

"Our channels for guiding youth have become problematic. For example, it is said that religion is an important part in juveniles’ lives, but in China religion is depressed. If all the areas are blocked, and the newspaper is full of hypocritic propaganda, it will finally depress the juveniles to develop anti-social psychology. I think this is very sad."

Chinese experts have proposed to strengthen laws punishing juvenile offenders, lowering the age limits for the death penalty and criminal responsibility, and establishing a justice system for charging juvenile gangs. However, Liu Xiaozhu said that China has the world’s most severe criminal penalties. Therefore, the key to solving juvenile crime is not through severe punishment, but to rely on improving the quality of education and perfecting community support and family functions. 

Endnote:
[1] Radio Free Asia, June 24
http://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/campus-06242008104134.html?searchterm=None

The following article has been posted on many Chinese websites under different titles. The extensive posting on China’s heavily censored websites and blogs indicates a widespread public acceptance of the article; it also indicates that the ruling regime feels a real sense of political crisis. In this scholarly article, both nationalism and the anti-western sentiment found in traditional propaganda have been blended together. China is portrayed as a grief-stricken victim, not of its own regime, or of the breakdown of morality in China, but of lustful western exploitation that has expended all its natural and human resources to contribute to the welfare of the West and of the rest of the world. The West is cited as a scapegoat for all the current problems that China faces: the prevalence of tainted food, slave-labor wages, the prevalence of crime and prostitution, the outrageous environmental degradations, wanton corruption, the lack of occupational safety, the heavy losses in the financial sector, and even why China’s wealthy transfer their assets abroad. Below is an unabridged translation of the Chinese original. Chinascope has not been able to verify the authorship. [1]

Author: Professor Zhang Hongliang of Central University of Nationalities

A volunteer named Zeng Feiyang did an investigation within the Pearl River Delta, which is known as China’s export base, and found that every year 30,000 accidents occur in which punch worker’s fingers are severed. This totals more than 40,000 fingers. These figures are only for accidents happening to punch workers; it is just a small percentage of the accidents that happen to all machinery workers. As for the actual number of total machinery accidents, it is probably a number that no one will ever figure out. However, an investigation was conducted of the 8-million laborers in Shenzhen City. The results showed that one out of every five laborers has had either a work accident or an occupational disease. Therefore some factories in Shenzhen completely change their workers every two years. In order to deal with the disabled workers going to court, so that the state can “maintain the stability of society” and “avoid affecting economic profits,” the local government purposely prolongs the processing time of the cases in which the workers sue the employers so that they last three years or more. Consequently, these disabled workers usually end up giving up because they do not have enough money to stay for three years. They go back to the rural area and there goes the second half of their lives. Take a look at the rushing water of the Pearl River; it is full of laborers’ blood and tears!

As we talk about the laborers’ misery, one will at once remember the mine accidents in China. The entire world has found them shocking. From 2001 to 2005 in China, the mine accidents where 10 or more people were killed occurred on the average of once every week. The price of the 80 million tons of coal is the yearly death of more than 6000 mineworkers, which is an average of 17 workers per day. These numbers come from government statistics; the actual numbers should be much higher. Even according to these government statistics, China’s death rate for every million tons of coal is 100 times more than that of the US, and 10 times more than that of India or Russia. China’s death rate is ranked number 1 in the world and the total number of deaths is higher than the sum of the rest of the world combined. The mountainous bone ash of mine workers has stacked up a countless amount of treasure for the international monopolies and the Chinese mine owners. In this year’s Beijing International Automobile Exhibit, a mine owner with a running nose wanted to buy a Ferrari that costs several millions of yuan. When the lady told him that the car was very expensive, the mine owner sniffed out the snot and said, “Just let me know how much. I’ll buy the car as well as you.” In the end, several mine owners bought a total of more than 80 Ferraris. This extremely distorted scene of capitalists in a Communist country cannot be seen anywhere else in the world, even in a colony.
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3. From the aspect of foreign exchange, the enormous amount of treasure obtained by the laborers’ blood and tears as well as the mine workers’ mountainous bone ash are all completely offered and transferred to the US. However, facing the unprecedented resource disaster and the catastrophes suffering by the common people, China’s mainstream economists are cheering and saying that we have obtained a great amount of valuable foreign exchange. We indeed have 1,000 billion dollars in foreign exchange. However, rather than saying that these are China’s valuable treasure, it is better to say that these are the US’s valuable treasure. First of all, more than 2/3 of these 1,000 billion dollars are US money. What is US money? Basically it is some paper printed by the US printing firms. The US can print whatever amount they like. As there is more and more US money printed, the value of US currency drops, and China’s foreign exchange is greatly reduced in value. Calculating the US dollar’s value in Euro dollars, the US currency’s value has dropped by 50% in the past few years. Just like that, more than 700 billion dollars of China’s foreign exchange has evaporated by half. This half equals the total income of the entirety of China’s population. This year another 6% of the foreign exchange will evaporate. This is 60 billion dollars and exceeds the total amount of medical care for the aged people in China. Secondly, most of the foreign exchange that China bought is the national debt of the US. In the past there is a line used in China for mobilizing people to take action, “Buy the national debt to support the nation’s construction.” Today, we are buying the US’s debt to help the financial success of the US, and using extra foreign exchange to help stabilize US market prices, to lower the everyday living cost of the US people, and to support the national construction of the US.

Not only is this so, including the US, many developed Western countries say that China has a large amount of favorable balance of trade, thus pressuring China’s currency from gaining value. They also work with the companies within China and threaten China with the greatly reduced value of foreign exchange, so that the Chinese government imports western products with a very high price. It is shocking how high the prices of the imported products are and how low the prices of the exported products are. The luxury cars that China imports cost more than three times the prices on the oversea markets. Rolls-Royce Phantom Coupe costs about $400,000 overseas, but in China it sold for several million. Not long ago, a real estate businessman just bought one for over two million dollars. Prices of middle class cars in China are also around two times the price on the oversea markets. The imported makeup products and other luxury products are even more unbelievable. It is like publicly robbing away money from China.

In the China Southern Luxury Exhibit, an emerald was sold for over 11 million dollars. In the following luxury exhibit in Shanghai, within four days, more than 70 million dollars were exchanged in all the successful deals. Many luxury companies in the world rushed into China; so far there are more than 300 of them. Even things that are cheap overseas are selling in China as luxury products. For example, le vin rouge from France costs over 1,000 yuan (140 USD) in China, but in France some beggars often drink it even in the subway. The intellectual products have even higher prices. Microsoft Windows 98 costs $50 in the US, which is about 400 yuan. It is less than two hours salary of an American blue collar worker. In China, it is sold for 6,999 yuan, which equals a Beijing worker’s wages for 14 months, or a Shenzhen laborer’s wages for 20 months. Later, the XP system came out and it costs as much as 65,000 yuan. The pirate market has actually kept all these prices low. Otherwise, these monopoly prices would force 95% of China’s computer users to quit and China’s information technology level would retrogress by 20 years.
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Western developed countries have hired China’s business groups and mainstream economic experts and have already successfully established a system where China imports products with high prices and exports product with low prices. Through this system, they are converting China’s resources and the health of China’s citizens into the cheap products in their countries. As the consumption level gets higher and higher, these developed countries, including Japan, have not worsened their environment at all; instead these countries’ environments are getting cleaner and cleaner. By using China’s business groups, these countries have successfully separated profits and cost. Without costing themselves any bad outcomes, they still get good economic growth, and let China bear the bad consequences for them. This system can also be seen now with the conflict of China’s currency (Renminbi). Unlike US dollars, which are losing value both internally and externally, China’s currency is rising in value in relation to US dollars, but its buying power is reducing inside China. What this rising and dropping are doing is basically moving all the money of the common Chinese people into the pockets of the overseas employers.

4. Looking at the foreign capital, on one hand, China is using an enormous amount of money to support the US’s economic development; on the other hand, it is sacrificing our own resources and even our sovereignty, in order to attract foreign capital. Foreign capital is becoming the economic basis for the developed western countries to control China’s economics. Under the globalization today, the fact that foreign capital is flowing into China itself is a normal phenomena. However, the way we are drawing the foreign capital is becoming a historic catastrophe for the nation and the people.

First, the foreign capital economics is becoming a major way in sucking out China’s wealth. The foreign capital in China occupies more than 40% of our GDP, and the foreign firms take up 55.48% of the total imports and exports. This by far exceeds the normal ratio of the foreign capital for an export-oriented economy country. By the end of 2005, the total foreign capital that our country used was 662.405 billion dollars. According the estimate by the World Bank, the yearly profit margin rate of the foreign firms in developing countries is as high as 16% – 18%. From this, we can estimate that just in 2005, foreign firms gained more than 100 billion dollars of profit from China. The World Bank’s estimate is for the average developing countries. However, it is obvious that this number is far off from the actual number in China. This is because the foreign firms in China enjoy tax free, cheap land, super cheap labor, and all kinds of corrupt benefits. These do not exist in other developing countries.

How high is the actual profit margin rate? This is a highly confidential number to both the government and foreign firms. Therefore we can only try to estimate from various sources. The monopolies inside China (owned by the Chinese people) have a profit margin rate from 100% to 2000%. Usually, the profit margin rate of the foreign firms cannot be lower than these monopolies. This had been confirmed in many cases when foreign firms disclosed this information. For instance, Morgan Stanley had an internal conflict and some confidential information was disclosed as a result – their profit margin rate in China was 900%. If we calculate using the lowest rate of the monopolies, which is 100%, the total profit gained by the foreign firms in China each year should be around 700 billion dollars, which equals the sum of two years of all people’s salary in China.
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Also, nowadays when the foreign firms enter China, their main goal is no longer investing money into new projects. It is actually to collude with officials to purchase an enormous amount of state-owned assets at very low prices. This is a planned nation-wide murder. The first step is a tax-free system in which the foreign firms do not pay income tax for the first two years and pay half the income tax in the next three years. In the whole world, such a case only happens in China, where foreign firms enjoy something that the nation’s own citizens do not enjoy. This tax-free system has given the foreign firms the power to easily crush down any state-owned firms. The state-owned firms not only have to pay 33% (before it was 38%) of heavy taxation, but also have to cover the employee’s benefits. Consequently, when competing with the foreign firms, who do not pay tax or provide benefits to the employees, the result is already obvious. The second step is pressuring the desperate state-owned firms to “cut employees and increase efficiency.” Consequently, 60 million employees have been laid off from these state-owned firms. This is just like before trying to possess a woman, forcing her to throw away her kid. The result is that we have peeled off the barriers and separated out the clean capital. We are just waiting for foreign firms to come and swallow it.

Endnotes:
[1] Boxun, June 9, 2008
http://news.boxun.com/news/gb/china/2008/06/200806092153.shtml

On May 11, 2006, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences published the first edition of The World Socialism Yellow Book. At the publication ceremony, Li Shenming, the deputy dean of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the director of the World Socialism Research Center, said, “We will have a relatively long time to coexist with the world of capitalism; we need to incorporate the constancy of our principles with the flexibility of our strategies. We are doing follow up research on world socialism to unveil the objective rules in history’s development with real historical facts – the twenty first century will be the century of socialism’s revival.” The following is a report on this event from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. [1]

On May 11, the Research Center for World Socialism and the Social Science Publications held a publication ceremony for The World Socialism Yellow Book, First Edition, and a discussion forum of the 2006 World Socialism and the Left Wing School of Thought. Li Shenming, the director of the Research Center for World Socialism and the deputy dean of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences was the keynote speaker. A hundred or so other directors, experts and scholars attended the forum, including: He Bingmeng, the deputy secretary of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the executive director of the World Socialism Research Center; Huang Haotao, the deputy director of the World Socialism Research Center; Wu Enyuan, the secretary of the Marxism Research Center; and Cheng Enfu, the deputy director of the Research Center for World Socialism and the deputy dean of the Marxism Research Center.

Li Shenming said that, since the Soviet Union’s drastic change, the world socialism movement has been in a declining mode. In 1994, the central government, with a high vision of the future, suggested not to give up doing research on the big topic of socialism. Based on this direction and led by the Central Propaganda Department, an overseas’ socialism follow up research coordination group was established. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences took the primary role for this group, with participation from the International Department Central Committee of the C.P.C, Central Translation Bureau, the Xinhua Agency, the Party School of the Central Committee of the C.P.C and the State Education Commission. In 12 years, the research effort has achieved significant results, and a series of high quality accomplishments. It has supported the central government’s policies with theories and references. Practice proved that the central government’s decision was absolutely correct.

Li Shenming said that we should continue to embrace the global strategy, finding evidence from the curved development of world socialism and it’s up and down moments to explain the future history that follows the laws of social development. Li also said that currently and in the future, the follow up research on world socialism needs to focus on the following issues to plan and execute the research: first, to apply Marxism, to systematically summarize the experience gained and lessons learned from the world socialism movements in the twentieth century, and to especially focus on the Soviet Communist Party and the Soviet Union’s history; second, to understand the main themes of current world development and to understand and summarize the latest state in the development of capitalism; third, to understand the fundamental differences and historical connections between capitalism and socialism.
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First of all, we need to recognize the fundamental difference between socialism and capitalism. Second of all, we also need to recognize the historic connections between capitalism and socialism. Third, capitalism’s strong development and socialism’s weakness is a temporary state; it could change. Socialism will develop from weakness to strength, and eventually surpass and win over capitalism. This is also an unavoidable objective principle. During this period, there may exist a fairly long time of cooperation, competition, struggle and even fighting process. Based on our research, when we pull together the accurate and real massive historical facts to explain the relationship between socialism and capitalism, to show the fundamental differences and connections, we can build people’s confidence in the success of establishing the Chinese style of socialism. Fourth, we need to analyze assess and have an overview of world socialism’s development in the 21st century. These are the most proper topics for the study of socialism.

Li Shenming believed that today, the study of world socialism should follow up on a number of factors, including: research on the reformation of the existing socialist countries, their trials, and their development in socialism, especially after the Soviet Union collapsed; the theories, the rebuilt administration cabinets and policy changes that the communist parties or worker parties have done differently from the western developed countries, the ex-Soviet Union areas and the third world countries to react to the drastic changes in the Soviet Union; the propaganda, development, research, and discussions of Marxism, socialism and other left wing thoughts around the world, and the union worker’s movements, farmer’s movements, student movements and other types of left wing activities in the capitalist countries. Of course, this follow up research may not cover each and every area. We need to have emphasis, and to focus on the important events and people, organizations and theories to conduct long term follow up research in order to discover its internal connections and patterns.

Li Shenming emphasized that the current unreasonable and unfair political and economic rules can only support a small group of western developed countries; and can only allow a small number of people to be in charge of the “business expansion,” “wealth,” and luxurious production style and life style. It can increase the distance between the rich and the poor from the north and the south; and it could accelerate the social separation into two extremes. We will have a relatively long time to coexist with the world of capitalism; we need to incorporate the constancy in our principles with the flexibility in our strategies. We are doing the follow up research on world socialism to unveil the objective rules in history’s development with real historical facts – the twenty first century will be the century of socialism’s revival.

Cheng Enfu, the deputy director of the Research Center for World Socialism and the deputy dean of the Marxism Research Center, and Xie Shouguang, the head of the Social Sciences Publications hosted the forum and publication ceremony. Chen Zhihua, the executive director of the World Socialism Research Center, introduced the content of the “The World Socialism Yellow Book.” Wu Enyuan, Wu Xiongcheng, Li Qiqing gave speeches at the forum. They shared their analysis on the theories used by the socialist countries in the world and exchanged their points of view on left wing activities in Europe, Latin American and Asian areas.
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The articles, collected in the newly published The World Socialism Yellow Book: Tracking Study of World Socialism – Listening to the new tides at a low ebb (vol 2), were the latest research results from the Research Center for World Socialism. The No. 1 series, Listening to the new tides at a low ebb: The Future of the World Socialism in 21st Century was an edition of outstanding articles published by the center since its startup ten years ago. It included several schools of thought on socialism and documented important global events led by the left wing. This book was reprinted as The World Socialism Yellow Book (2004 Edition). From now on, the research center will publish The World Socialism Yellow Book annually to introduce the new developments in world socialism and to publish new research results on world socialism study.

Endnote:
[1] Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, May 15, 2006
http://www.cass.net.cn/file/2006051559241.html